The industrial dispatch of piece goods by truck, railway, ship or aircraft provides for the use of containers, which are to be loaded and unloaded with respect to the particular piece goods to be transported. Typically such containers have a parallelepipedic loading space volume, which is conventionally accessible from a single, openable loading space side for loading and unloading. However, particular significance is attached to the loading process, particularly as this determines the degree of filling with which the container is loaded with a plurality of individual piece goods and which ultimately decisively establishes the economics of the transportation. There is also a special loading plan determining the loading or stacking pattern for the piece goods within the container for ensuring the transportation safety of the individual piece goods and also that of the entire container. Thus, loose piece goods within the container dramatically increase the safety of the overall transportation.
Having said this the remaining statements mainly relate to the loading of piece goods with a flexible or deformable piece good surface, such as is e.g. the case with piece good-filled sacks or bags, such as e.g. those for cereals, sand, salt, spices, sugar, etc. However, the subsequently described aspects and measures can also relate to piece goods with fixed piece good surfaces, such as e.g. packages, even though to a somewhat limited extent.
The loading of sack-like piece goods into container loading spaces normally takes place manually. It is admittedly known to use a telescopic belt conveyor which projects into a loading space and by means of which the individual piece goods can be singly transferred into said loading space, but it is still up to the person located in the loading space to deposit the incoming piece goods in accordance with a corresponding stacking pattern within the loading space. Apart from the in part very high dead weight of the individual piece goods, it is not possible with such a partially manual loading or only through the application of very high effort to stack piece goods to just below the loading space top or roof, particularly as the loading space height generally exceeds the manually accessible working height.
Completely automated loading systems with which the above described, multiside-closed containers can be loaded are not at present available. In addition, when using the at least partly automated loading procedures, as a result of the only very short time slot within which the loading process must be concluded, it is not possible to ensure the precise maintenance of the desired positions of the individual piece goods established on the basis of a predetermined loading pattern. As a result the necessary piece good quantity cannot be completely brought into the loading space in many cases. In particular on loading piece goods packed in sacks, on depositing the individual piece goods undefined geometrical shapes arise, which cause unused gaps within the stack-like piece good arrangement and consequently significantly reduce the degree of filling of the loading space.
To avoid the confined space conditions within the loading space during the loading process, in so-called two-stage loading processes there is a stack-like combining of a plurality of individual piece goods on loading pallets outside the loading space and they are subsequently brought as a whole into the loading space. In this case a palletizing robot is used for producing the piece good stack on the basis of a predetermined palletizing diagram. In order to subsequently bring the three-dimensional palletizing diagram into the loading space, it is necessary to have corresponding loading aids, e.g. in the form of so called Euro-pallets, which in this case remain within the loading space and therefore take up a not inconsiderable amount of space, which is to be avoided.
DE 197 19 748 C2 discloses a means for handling piece goods, particularly packages, for the loading and unloading of a loading space, as well as a corresponding method, in which the individual piece goods can be conveyed into and out of the loading space by means of a vertically adjustable conveyor. To the vertically adjustable conveyor is then connected a horizontally oriented conveying section, whose length corresponds to the loading space width, so that in planned manner the individual piece goods can be positioned for taking up or setting down at a random location within the loading space. The taking up or setting down of the individual piece goods from the horizontally oriented conveyor section takes place with the aid of a corresponding suction gripper device. The known means admittedly aims a tan optimum piece good utilization of the loading space volume, but said piece goods have a specific surface shape and are preferably seamlessly stackable on and over one another.